Q&A WITH TIM CHOU: EVERYTHING FROM HIS NEW SINGLE ‘HEADLINES’, TO WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR THIS BUDDING MUSICIAN
RSOM writer Tara Formosa sits down with emerging singer/songwriter Tim Chou ahead of his new single, Headlines, out now on all major digital platforms.
Firstly, thank you for making the time to sit down and chat! I have so many questions for you, let’s get straight into it. How and when did writing and recording songs come about for you?
So I wrote my first song when I was 13, after I started playing a bit of guitar, but I didn’t take it seriously until I was about 16, that’s when I knew I wanted to peruse music as a career. That’s when I really started to write songs and record them in GarageBand. I think I was 17, when I recorded my EP (officially), because I wanted to get all these songs that I had lined up out into the world. I just needed to get a catalogue going so that people could hear what I writing, and especially in music, there’s not one way to get your music out there, you just have to do it.
Totally, it’s all about just writing and recording and getting as much out into the world as possible. And with regards to recording your songs, do you record at home?
I record my demos through GarageBand at home, and then when I decide on the songs I was to release, I go to my mate (Luca) and we use Pro Tools to record. He has a studio, it’s pretty awesome!
That’s great! It’s always handy to have friends that can help you out when it comes to polishing off all those musical ideas. And from that, what is it like for you as an independent artist, starting out in the music industry in Melbourne.
Ahh… it is challenging
How so?
I would say my main issue is trying to juggle between school and music. If you want to peruse a career in music, it’s quite time consuming. I have to practice singing, as well as guitar and of course songwriting. These things aren’t, like, easy to do quickly… I don’t think I’m that talented, so I think I need to work harder at my music, but it’s something that I enjoy, I enjoy doing it. I love a challenge.
You are DEFINITELY talented, the talent is clearly not the issue! Not only are you in the middle of your Year 12 exams, but you’re also releasing original music, that’s talent! But after you do finish high school, will you be studying music further?
Yeah so I am going to peruse a music course at uni, and I feel that it will help me get my skills down as a musician but also make me a better independent artist as well.
Well that’s great! And being an independent artist doesn’t only mean recording and writing original music, it’s also about marketing and managing yourself, it’s tough. In terms of making your music heard and putting yourself out there, are there any challenges you find come with that also?
I’d say the two main challenges are time and money. I try to reach out to as many people as I can through email, and most of the time not a lot of them respond, I guess that’s just how it goes. I also use platforms like Submit Hub, sometimes they require money for entries and depending on which way I want to market my music, I have to decide where I want to spend money. Sometimes I’ll spend money on ads and sometimes I spend money on submitting my song, it just depends what I want to focus on. And then, it’s just writing out all the emails and pres releases that take up so much time, especially when I try to write each email specially to a certain person, I want to personalise it. It’s fun, I enjoy it but it’s so time consuming.
Definitely, time and money I think would be the most common challenges that any independent artist faces. Now, tell me all about your new single Headlines. What was the inspiration behind it?
So Headlines is the only happy song that I have on my EP, which is kind of standard for me, I usually write sad songs. I started writing it a year and a half ago but I didn’t actually finish it until the start of this year, because when I wrote it, it was originally a guitar driven piece. But then throughout lockdown last year, a few of my mates and people that I know got engaged and that inspired me to write a wedding song, or a wedding sounding song at least. Actually, I remember when my teacher first got a boyfriend, she would come to class and tell us all about how great the new boyfriend was, and then when she got engaged, she would show us the ring and tell us how happy she is. She just wanted to tell us all of her good news, and when you get good news, you want everyone to know about it and feel as happy as you are, and that’s when it clicked. I wanted to write a song about being so in love with someone that you just want the whole world to know. It’s also the first song of mine that has a guitar solo in it, which is awesome. I love John Meyer and other guitarists, so I want to start putting guitar solos into my songs, I think that’s pretty cool. Headlines was a collaborative effort, I got my mates to play the drums and piano and I just played the guitar, whereas in my other songs I usually play all the instruments. It was fun, but kind of annoying because we had to do it online because of restrictions, but we learnt a lot.
I love that and totally understand that. I think as a songwriter, writing a song from someone else’s perspective is a great tool to have because it really makes you think outside your own box.
Yeah definitely, a lot of my songs are like that actually. And when it came to writing the lyrics, I wanted them to sound like wedding vowels, which you can tell once you listen to each line of lyrics.
I think once people hear Headlines for themselves, they’ll definitely be able to appreciate the fact that you wrote the lyrics to symbolise wedding vowels, it’s very clever! Now in regards to 2021 coming to an end, what can your listeners expect to hear from you in 2022?
2022… Okay, so the plan I originally I had for 2021 was to release two EP’s, which is super ambitious and was never going to happen, but, I’m an ambitious person so I just wanted to set a big goal. I turned down two EP’s into two singles instead, that’s why I wanted to get another single out and do it for myself, even if it’s not what I intended from the start. So hopefully next year, I will release two EP’s, the EP I have completed now is a four track EP, and that features To Loose Somebody and Headlines, which is already out/ will be coming out. And then I have an EP I started working on at the end of last year that I couldn’t finish because of Covid, so hopefully I’ll be able to do more music and get it done.
And as a young, independent artist, what is it that you want your listeners to gain from your music?
It would be nice if they could gather different points of views, because I feel like the songs that I write are more lyrically important rather then melodically important. A lot of the songs that I write aren’t specifically about me, but of my mates and what’s going on in their lives, so if the audience can feel something, that would be pretty cool. I always say that I don’t want my listeners to relate to my songs, because most of them are pretty sad. If they can empathies with it and understand it, then that would be nice. But not with Headlines, that’s a happy song! I didn’t want to end the year on a sad note.
I think that as long as your audience finds enjoyment from your music, whether it be to fulfil feeling sad or feeling happy, you should be very proud. And to wrap up todays interview Tim, what would you say to someone just starting out in music or what would you have liked to have heard when you first started?
I think you just have to do it, just make a start. It’s not very specific, but just start posting online, go busk on the street, just go anywhere where you can learn and feel what it’s like to perform for people. You figure it out as you go, that’s what I’m doing. I have no idea what I’m doing, but it seems to be working out so far
It was a pleasure interviewing Tim and getting to know his musical journey. Make sure to check out Headlines for a taste of something sweet and happy, available from the 19th of November, 2021.
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